MISSION News & Views

Autumn 2015

In this issueMid-Year Appeal 2015

You’re doing ‘life’ Father

• You’re doing ‘life’ Father Fr Peter Toohey

• Meet a Columban Brisbane , Adelaide

• Visitation story from Superior General Fr Kevin O’Neill

• Seminarian joins Essendon community Fr Ray Scanlon

• Painters brush with mission

• Columban News National Youth Award Ashleigh Green

• Subscribe to The Far East

After 22 years working as a Prison Chaplain in Western Australian jails, Fr Peter Toohey shares some reflections with us:

“On Easter Sunday, I celebrated Mass in Prison for the last time. The prisoners used say to me: You’re doing “Life” Father, just like some of us! But now I realise that God is calling me to take a different path and leave this ministry to others. I feel immensely grateful for all the blessings God has given me over these years. I have been entrusted with so many secrets of the heart, confessions of guilt, experiences of anguish, loss and self-hatred. There is nothing they have confessed to me which in some shape or form I have not myself experienced. Indeed if I had grown up in a home where there was violence and abuse, perhaps I would be wearing green like them! I loved also the Masses I celebrated with the prisoners. It was an opportunity for them to share their reflections on the

Scriptures and how and where they had met Jesus on their own journey. I believe that through my years in prison work I have become more vulnerable, more accepting of my limitations and inadequacies, more at peace with who I am. I was once a “rescuer”, it was all about “me”. Now I realise that it was never about “me” - and what a relief that is!

Donate onlinewww.columban.org.au

Mission is never over

In the mid-year appeal letter Superior General Fr Kevin O’Neill SSC speaks about two new initiatives of expanding Columban mission in China and its return to Myanmar (formerly Burma) after an absence of almost 30 years. Fr Kevin thanks the benefactors for their ongoing support of Columban missionaries and their work.

Fr Peter Toohey

Photo: bigstockphoto.com

2 Mission News & Views

Meet a Columban

will be a 30-day Ignatian retreat which he will do at a Jesuit retreat house in Melbourne.

Fr. Kelvin Barrett is with us to accompany and guide Genovio along this important journey.

We ask all our friends and supporters to remember Genovio and Kelvin in prayer over this time. Fr Ray Scanlon SSC Vice Director ANZ Region.

Seminarian joins Essendon communityColumban Fr Kelvin Barrett and Korean Columban seminarian Genovio Cho Sunggeun have recently travelled from South Korea to join the Columban community at Essendon for most of the year, 2015. Genovio was formerly a lay missionary who worked with the Columbans in Chile for 3 years. That experience influenced him to recognise a call to become a Columban missionary priest himself.

His presence with us in Melbourne is for him to do his “Spiritual Year” - a year during which he puts aside his theology and philosophy books and concentrates on things of the spirit and the discernment of his vocation to follow Jesus as a Columban missionary priest. An important part of that discernment “ His presence with

us in Melbourne is for him to do his “Spiritual Year”

Visitation story from Superior General Columban Fr Kevin O’Neill is the Superior General of the Missionary Society of St Columban. Among his many roles is visiting Columban missionaries and meeting the people among whom they live and work. He shares one of his visitation stories here:

Pakistan “While in Pakistan I accompanied Columban Fr Dan O’Connor (New Zealand) to the humble abode of a Catholic family who lived in the countryside on the land they tilled for their landlord. As the sun set we gathered with the extended family for Mass inside their mud brick house. Just as Mass was about to begin a small group of young men joined us.

Later I learned that they were Hindus and would sometimes attend the Mass. They didn’t have their own place to worship so knowing that this was a sacred ritual the young men wanted to have this special time with their neighbours”.

Thanksgiving

“On behalf of the Missionary Society of St Columban I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our benefactors for their ongoing support of Columban missionaries and their work”.

Columban Fr Kevin O’Neill SSC resides in Hong Kong.

Columbans on the road

Frs. Trevor Trotter and George Hogarty are working in parishes in the Archdiocese of Brisbane promoting Columban Mission and The Far East magazine. Fr Trevor has been in Brisbane for the last two years doing promotion in addition to his roles, three days a week as Director of the Diaconate Program and acting Director for Clergy Life and Mission for the Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Fr George Hogarty has recently returned from Peru where he was parish priest in one of the poorest areas for 8 years.

Brisbane

Adelaide

In addition to his role as editor of The Far East, Fr Dan Harding will be in parishes in the Archdiocese of Adelaide to promote Columban Mission and The Far East magazine. Prior to his appointment to Australia in 2011 Fr Dan worked on mission in Chile for over 20 years.

For further information...

Details of where you can meet a Columban can be found at: www.columban.org.au

Photo: bigstockphoto.com

Painters brush with mission Art and history merged in February, 2015 at the Columban headquarter’s North Park Mansion, Essendon, built in 1888. The Rotary clubs of Keilor East and Essendon asked Fr Ray Scanlon of St Columbans Mission Society to open the building to the public for the first time for the Moonee Valley Art Show, proceeds of which were to go to the poor in Peru.

The Moonee Valley Art Show was opened by the Mayor of the City of Moonee Valley, Narelle Sharpe, at a gala event on Friday evening, 27th February. During the weekend, many people flocked to see the ‘big house on the hill’ and to view and purchase the art.

Mission News & Views

The art show

Email addressesPostage savings will assist Columban mission activities

As postage costs continue to increase we ask you to supply your email address so that we can send electronic acknowledgments to the mid-year appeal.

There is a space provided on the appeal coupon for your email address and a reply paid envelope for its return. Alternatively you can send details to info@columban.org.au

Apart from a massive storm on Saturday night that wreaked havoc with the outdoor displays and stands, the event was a wonderful success with many paintings being sold. As a result, Columbans in Peru

3Fr Kelvin Barrett & Genovio Cho Sunggeun

North Park Mansion, Essendon

were the recipients of a donation for St Bernadette’s Children’s projects in Lima, Peru.

Columbans would like to thank the Rotary clubs of Keilor East and Essendon for their hard work and look forward to working with them again.

Photo: bigstockphoto.com

COLUMBAN MISSION CENTREPO Box 752 Niddrie Victoria Australia 3042 Email: info@columban.org.au Ph: (03) 9375 9475 Fax: (03) 9379 6040 Web: www.columban.org.au

St Columban became ‘A Wanderer for Christ’. One of his greatest sayings summarises his life and his work, ‘Let us be of Christ not of ourselves’.

www.columban.org.au

Columban News

National Youth Award

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2015

Columban worker, Ashleigh Green, is one of four finalists in this year’s National Youth Culture & Diversity Award.

Ashleigh, 23 years old, works in the Columban Mission Institute for The Centre of Christian-Muslim Relations. She works with women and young people from the Christian and Muslim traditions to promote better relations.

Raised on the Central Coast of NSW, Ashleigh Green says that growing up she had few opportunities to meet people from other cultures or different faiths. All this changed when on a visit to Sydney at 17 years of age she took part in an open day at a Mosque in Auburn.

“Until then I had never met anyone other than Christians. But that day I met Muslim women and had long conversations and I discovered how similar we were with the same dreams and ambitions and love of family. I also realised that the perceptions of Muslims created by what we see and read in the media are simply not true,” she says.

Being judged a finalist in one of the key categories of the National Youth Awards, which will be announced at a gala Presentation Dinner in Brisbane on 16 April (after publication), recognises Ashleigh’s commitment, dedication and skill at fostering understanding and friendships between young people of different cultures, religions and backgrounds.

Although she admits she is thrilled to be named one of the finalists in the 2015 National Youth Awards, Ashleigh says that she is also “totally surprised”.

With a degree in Media and Anthropology from the University of Sydney and currently studying for a Masters in Social Work at the Australian Catholic University, for the past two years Ashleigh has been an integral part of the Columban Mission Institute’s Centre for Christian-Muslim Relations.

Subscribe to The Far East

(10 issues per year) inc postage & handling (AUS only)

The Far East magazine is published by St Columbans Mission Society. It features

articles and images from Columban missionaries, lay missionaries and Columban sisters from the countries where they work.

PRICE $1.50

The Far EastMarch 2015

COLUMBAN MISSION MAGAZINE

Reflection - Christ dying, Christ rising in the Peruvian Andes

Leo's last wish We remember Fr Leo Donnelly

The prison visitorVisiting prisons in Hong Kong

$15.00 p.a.

Ashleigh Green